


Beneath Our Blackened Hearts

by smalltrolven



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, M/M, Reality Bending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-24 09:55:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21097550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven
Summary: In the confusing days after Michael is ejected from Dean, the brothers bounce around a bunker gone empty around them. Something that’s been hunting them for years finally catches up with them. It slowly takes them apart in their home, piece by piece they lose touch with reality and themselves. Neither of them can tell fact from fiction, dream from nightmare and they are given a taste of what they’ve always wanted, as well as a chance to fight for it.





	Beneath Our Blackened Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Show level violence as well as show level temporary main character death.  
Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words. Written for the 2019 spn-eldritch bang. Thanks so much to huntress79 for the great art, it adds so much to the story.

Check out the Art Masterpost here [on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21113270) or [on LJ](https://sandy79.livejournal.com/115896.html)

****

The silence in the bunker these last couple of days has gone from pleasant to unnerving. Over the long weeks of Dean’s absence, Sam had gotten used to being distracted by the noise in the place. All day, every day, it seemed like there was always someone there, filling up the silence. Either all the other hunters coming and going, mom banging around in the kitchen or war room, or Jack and Cas practicing fight techniques in the gym. Someone was always here, making noise—just not Dean noise.

But they’re all gone now, cleared out after all the dramatics that were involved after Michael was defeated. Cas and Jack are out on a so-called milk run to prove that they can do the hunting thing all by themselves. Honestly, the jury’s still out on that one, but Sam couldn’t find the strength to object. Mom is off with new-Bobby somewhere that Sam doesn’t really want to think too deeply about. And Dean…well, his brother is physically here, but keeping to himself. Dean might as well not even be here for all the noise he’s not making.

It’s the silence, the absence of those usual Dean noises that gets Sam’s radar up. Something has been off since he got Dean back. He knows the only solution is that he’s got to draw his brother out. Just because the archangel is dead and gone, there’s likely still something of Michael left behind inside Dean. In his personal experience, there always is, especially with angels—and Sam is the current household expert on post-angelic possession, archangel or otherwise. And without a doubt, Dean would be attempting to cope with that on his own, and as silently as possible so as not to draw Sam’s attention. Sigh.

Sam tries to think about helping his brother as logically as possible, trying to keep all the emotion out of it that he possibly can. What would he most have wanted as far as brotherly support after his various possessions? Understanding that he needed any support at all, that would have been pretty nice. A little recognition that it takes some doing to rearrange the contents of your skull, make sure your soul is back in the right place, little internal housekeeping things that one never has to think about too much. What had helped him the most, was just Dean being there with him, being the same old, familiar Dean. Beyond that the most helpful thing was probably the time they spent together not necessarily talking about the whole traumatic subject, and then most importantly—having something else to do.

That means that they need a new case to concentrate their energies on solving. Preferably something easy, but still interesting enough to make it worth the drive. Sam considers making a case up out of whole cloth just to get them out of the house and back on the road. Over the years he’s always counted on Dean getting behind the wheel of his baby to help solve a lot of his brother’s issues. Sad but true, sometimes his brother needs his car more than he needs him. Sam knows that it’ll be a whole lot easier for Dean to just get in the car and go if there’s even a small chance that one of the possible cases on their Maybe Someday List turns out to be an actual case. He checks over the hardcopy list they keep in a spiral binder, which is getting pretty damn long after all these years, and searches online for anything to update on each one. There’s nothing new that comes up, no new reason to get after any of these possibles. Absolutely nothing to turn them from possibles into probables.

In lieu of having a case to suggest, Sam can’t even imagine proposing any sort of vacation or get-away. He tries to think of how he’d even bring up going fishing or whatever. They haven’t been to Rufus’ cabin in a very long time, not since the Leviathan had been roaming around. Maybe it’s time to get out there and see if the cabin is still standing. There might be some loose ends from one of the cases they’d worked in that area that needs looking into. Sam gets his journal out, the digital version that Dean doesn’t know about. It’s a very handy database actually. All the cases they’ve ever worked, all the gory details, locations, and most of all the loose ends that he’d been careful to write out in detail. He sorts it by state and gets a small set of possibilities to comb through. At the very least he figures he can suggest they go out to Montana to do some minimal upkeep on the old cabin, just to keep it viable as a hideout in case they need one at some point.

It’s long past lunch time now, and Dean hasn’t been out of his room even once today as far as Sam has noticed.

He gets up from the library table and stretches, his back cracking ominously loud in the empty room. Sam makes a mental note to add more core work to his daily workout routine. After first checking the kitchen and bathroom for signs of his brother he ends up in front of Dean’s closed door. He brings a hand up to knock and stops himself. He can just barely hear the tinny sounds of music, the remnants of the noise assaulting his brother’s ears through his noise-canceling headphones. If Dean’s got the music turned up that loud, he definitely needs to be alone.

Sam heads to his room and turns around at a sudden scraping sound behind him. It sounded like a footstep or two coming towards him. But Dean is in his room, other than that they’re alone in the bunker.

“Hello?” Sam asks, the word echoing down the dark hallway. He suddenly finds himself wishing that they kept all the lights on, he’s too far away from the switch to light up the far end of the long hall. There’s another sound from the deep darkness at the end of the hall, this time more like a scuttling instead of footsteps, and then it abruptly stops.

He takes one step forward to investigate and then when he doesn’t hear anything else, decides against it, turning on his heel to go back to his room. It’s probably just a rodent. Last week, one of the new hunters had told him they needed to get a cat for the bunker, that he’d been hearing noises in that same end of the hall where they’d been bunking. As much as Sam would love to get a cat or a dog to have around the bunker, he knows that just isn’t in the cards for them with their hunting lifestyle. It’s not like they can hire a neighborhood pet sitter to come into their magically guarded underground bunker filled with supernatural gizmos. He makes a mental note to get some rat traps the next time they’re out at the store.

He shuts the door to his room quietly and lays down on top of his neatly made bed to stretch out the remaining kinks that are nagging in his lower back from all the sitting and researching. He’s surprised to hear a knock at the door a few moments later.

“Yeah, come in,” Sam says, hands wrapped around the edges of his headboard, toes pointing off the end of the bed, back arched up and finally, thankfully it’s loosening to where it lets go with a satisfying crack.

“You okay, Sammy?” Dean asks. He must have heard Sam calling down the hallway over his music. Dean still hasn’t come into the room all the way, hovering in the open doorway, like he’s not sure if he’s welcome in Sam’s space.

Sam wonders why he’s using the nickname, specifically why he would be using it like that in an everyday conversation like this one. It’s usually reserved for situations where they’re under duress or have just avoided dying.

“I should be the one asking you that question,” Sam says, sitting up from his stretch and really taking a look at his brother’s posture. Dean looks beaten down, his back bowed from carrying some invisible weight, almost like he’s uncomfortable in his own skin. Sam smiles, tries to make it clear that Dean is welcome, he scoots over a little on the bed making more room if Dean wants to sit down.

Finally Dean’s hesitation breaks and he walks forward, coming into the soft light of the room, shutting the door behind him. His skin looks golden and new, glowing burnished around the edges in the light from the two Tiffany style lamps Sam uses in his room. He’s so damn beautiful, Sam thinks to himself for maybe the millionth time. It’s nothing he’d ever say or do anything about, but it’s always there, the thing between them that they never talk about or act upon. It’s like the invisible, unacknowledged maypole their life together revolves around. At this point Sam’s resigned to it, he’s convinced himself that nothing is ever going to come from it, that it isn’t worth wrecking what they have together to maybe make a try at having something more. Besides they’ve got Mom back in their lives, and a kid to think about too.

Dean sits next to him on the bed, much closer than he’d expected. They’re hip to hip, Dean’s hand behind Sam’s back and pressing into the bed right behind him. Sam can feel the warmth of Dean’s skin bleeding through the back of his sweat pants.

“Sammy,” Dean says in a throaty whisper that Sam’s only heard those times long ago when he’d eavesdropped on Dean’s latest conquests as a preteen. He’d never dared to consider what his own name, especially that fond nickname, would sound like coming from Dean. And before he can think about how his nickname sounds a second more, Dean is leaning in even closer. The bed dips between them as he slides into Sam’s space. His dear, familiar face is right there, his lips barely brushing against Sam’s cheek.

“Sammy, oh god,” Dean says in that same throaty whisper, and Sam is undone. He turns into his brother, aligns them and they slot together like an inevitable tectonic plate refitting itself to its original place holding the world together. There isn’t a wave of desire or anything like that coming over him, just a feeling of rightness, and finally. Dean tastes a lot smokier than he’d ever guessed he would. Has his brother taken up the illicit cigarette sneaking habit again, maybe from the stress? But no, the taste isn’t cigarettes, it’s more like incense from some far away land. But then he doesn’t care, because Dean is swarming over him, pressing him down into the bed, all hands and insistent tongue.

Sam tries to give as good as he’s getting, nipping at the perfect curve of Dean’s neck where it meets his shoulder. The one he’s always obsessed over, all these years riding shotgun at his side. Dean’s skin feels so soft on his lips, like it’s baby new, that strange smoky taste is here too, but he fills in the usual scents that remind him of Dean, they’ve got to be somewhere underneath too, all that gun-oil, hair gel and stale coffee. Sam’s not sure who does it first, but they’ve both gotten their hands around each other, pulling and stroking in an instinctive rhythm that seems already familiar. Maybe it’s the same one that he’s heard from the other twin bed in all those motel rooms over the years. The same rhythm he’s always used on himself.

Dean’s voice though, it stays in that throaty whisper, and all he says is Sam’s nickname over and over. There’s no explanation, no second guessing or asking for permission. Just like this has always been happening, that this is how they always spend their spare time together, getting off in a blissful messy tangle.

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean says, and Sam lets himself. Dean falls asleep a few moments after he climaxes, snoring away into Sam’s pillows.

Sam props himself up on one elbow and just stares at him. Cataloguing the changes that the years have wrought on his beautiful, golden brother. The eye crinkles that he loves to distraction are relaxed as Dean sleeps, the faint lines in his forehead still point towards the years that have passed. Dean’s still alive, he’s still here, and now he’s what—mine? Finally, after all these years, really just like that? It seems impossible and improbable and inevitable. Of course that’s how this would go, that they’d finally stumble across the invisible line without even talking about it.

Sam untangles himself from Dean and grabs a change of clothes from his dresser. He takes a last look at his brother’s sleeping form and smiles. This changes everything, from here on out, Sam’s certain of it, there’s no other option. As he walks by Dean’s room on the way to the bathroom he hears that same sound of tinny music through the closed door. Dean must have left his headphones going. Maybe he really had heard him talking in the hallway earlier when Sam had heard the rat or whatever it was making that sound.

He takes a long hot shower and is surprised when Dean joins him, but doesn’t really join him, at least not like he’d let himself hope for now that everything has changed between them. Dean is in the shower at the end of the row like they normally handle any simultaneous showers in the Bunker’s enormous bathroom. He doesn’t do much more than grunt at Sam when he finally looks his way. Sam’s heart, his blackened heart contracts at the non-expression he sees on Dean’s face. It’s like nothing had happened between them just a few minutes ago. Like he’d dreamed the whole damn thing. There’s nothing different, no lustful gazes at his nakedness, instead it’s the usual faux-detached thing that they usually do. Never acknowledge what you’ve just seen, it’s been a lifetime of close quarters and hurried shared showers and bathrooms for Sam to know that supremely disinterested look. It’s the same one he’s usually wearing on his own face.

Sam is confused as hell—so he flees, leaving seems to be the best idea, the only thing that’ll work. He sure as hell is not going to try and talk to Dean about any of this. He stalks back to his room with a towel tied around his waist and his clothes tucked under his arm. He’s filled with anger, mostly at himself for falling for it, for hoping that everything would ever possibly turn out like some goddamn fairytale. This is his life, of course it’s not going to go like that. After he gets dressed, his eyes land on the bed, all crumpled and stained. It wasn’t a dream, it happened. He has the laundry to do to prove it to himself. If Dean wants to be a complete and utter asshole about it, then that’s how it’s going to be. He sure as hell is not going to bring it up—ever.

The smoky incense smell on the sheets reminds him of how Dean had tasted under his tongue. It brings the whole episode back and he presses his face into the pillow where Dean had just been sleeping. All he can smell is the musty smoke, not a bit of Dean left underneath, not anything he wants or aches for. It makes it easier to strip the bed and get the laundry going, not like the stained sheets are some sort of new keepsake to add to his memory box.

Dean has been keeping to himself for a few days now, not exactly avoiding Sam, but still he’s feeling relieved to be left alone for the time being. He knows that Sam’s worried, because his brother has been there and done this exact thing. Sam knows all too well that it’s no picnic coming back from being possessed by an angel. Dean didn’t know what to expect, he’d never talked to Sam about any of this post-possession recovery stuff. The interior furniture in his head still feels jumbled up, like everything is still in there, but it’s all set-up in the wrong places and he keeps bumping into things, wishing it would all just fix itself. But of course it’s not that easy.

After listening to all the silence in the bunker, he figures Sam must be out somewhere or sleeping so he’s surprised to hear a scuttling down at the dark end of the hall when he exits his room to head in for a shower. “Sam?”

There’s no answer, and no more sounds. He decides to not let himself get sidetracked and look into getting some traps or something the next time he’s at the hardware store in town. He heads to the bathroom, he’s overdue for a shower. The first day back he’d stayed under the hot water for at least an hour, trying and failing not to think of the term rape shower, because that’s exactly what is was. He crosses paths with Sam who’s almost done taking his own normal sort of shower. Dean hasn’t had coffee yet so he just grunts, not feeling verbal quite yet, Sam knows by now how he is pre-coffee. But then his brother is slamming out the door without a comment and a bitch-face scowl that makes no sense at all.

Under the hot spray, Dean decides that if he gets his ass in the kitchen and cooks them something good for dinner, maybe that’ll help him get back on the beam. Get back into the day to day groove, and spend some time doing something that he actually likes doing. Clean clothes and his house slippers, the perfect kitchen wear he thinks, tying on an apron. Sam’s been so good about leaving him alone he decides to make Sam’s favorite meal and looks forward to getting the kitchen good and messy in the prep work. He finds all the ingredients, spreads them out on the counter and gets it in gear.

That’s why he doesn’t notice that he’s no longer alone. Sam is hovering in the doorway, and for some reason it instantly pisses him off. His brother’s finally going to insist on a conversation about the Michael fiasco, the one he’s been dreading. His stomach contracts with just the thought of saying any of this shit out loud, especially saying it to Sam. He growls to himself that he isn’t making the opening salvo in this conversation, he’s just in here cooking with gas. Trying to keep on keeping on, keep grinding, all that.

“Hey,” Sam finally says.

Dean grits his teeth and tries not to let his shoulders rise up to the level of his ears, because Sam is watching, and he’ll know what that means. He takes a steadying deep breath, silently blowing it out through his mouth as he turns around to look at his brother. “Hey,” Dean says.

“You making what I think you’re making?” Sam asks with a small smile that breaks Dean’s heart with how hesitant it is, this is what they’ve come to, they can’t even talk about what’s for freaking dinner.

“Yeah, it’ll be out in about another hour or so,” Dean says, eyes flicking over to the stupidly cute chicken-shaped kitchen timer clock that Jack had picked out on their last grocery run.

“You need any help?” Sam asks.

“I was just going to do dishes, feel like drying or washing?” Dean asks, knowing that Sam will choose drying like always. Dean’s always felt like doing dishes together is kind of the home version of their late-night talks in the Impala. They’re long overdue for this one he finally admits to himself.

Sam picks up the drying towel and stands at his side. Dean scrubs at the first pot and rinses it clean, hands it over and tries not to react when their fingers touch. Sam seems to pause, like he’s noticing, and Dean’s blackened heart cramps at the thought that he’s finally revealed what he’s worked so hard at keeping hidden all these years.

“Stop, don’t do that, Dean,” Sam says, his eyes gone strange, catching the overhead kitchen lights in a momentary greenish flare.

“Stop what?” Dean asks, playing dumb for maybe the last time he thinks to himself. Maybe it would be a relief to have all the pretense over with.

“Hiding yourself, how you feel,” Sam says, reaching for the dripping spatula Dean’s been holding out all this time.

“I’m not hiding anything, I’m just tired. It’s a lot to deal with—I mean, you know how it is,” Dean says.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, you know that,” Sam says, and this time when their fingers touch on the handle of the wooden spoon, he turns it into a full-on hand hold. The spoon clashes back onto the drying rack.

“Kind of hard to wash dishes if you’re holdin’ my hand, Sammy,” Dean says, eyes gesturing down at their joined hands.

Sam squeezes his hand a little tighter and turns them to face each other, their bodies barely an inch apart. Sam’s head is blocking out the ceiling light and his hair is a glowing corona, almost a crown. He’s so fucking beautiful, and Dean just can’t keep it all from showing, not…not this time.

Sam sees the look on his face and leans in, pulling Dean a little off balance with a tug at their still joined hands. He brushes their lips together in the briefest of kisses.

“Sammy, what’re you doing?” Dean whispers, hating how he can’t be sure that he knows this is real, it’s got to be something leftover from Michael, one of those fantasy worlds he knows he has inside himself, the ones with the locked doors.

“What I’m doing is…I’m offering you a chance at this—at me,” Sam gestures at himself, and Dean can’t help but stare. “And I promise, no discussions, just me, however you want me, for however long you need me.”

“Just like that?” Dean asks, it’s too easy, things are never this easy, not with Sam. And so it can’t be real, can’t be happening.

“Yeah, easy like Sunday morning,” Sam says, teasing Dean with a song lyric about his love of the easy listening stations.

“What made you change your mind?” Dean asks, this is the million dollar question they’ve never asked out loud of course.

“I didn’t change my mind, but I thought you finally did, since you just let me see what you wanted. Was I wrong?” Sam asks, tilting his head slightly to one side.

Dean can’t answer, and Sam takes his breath away with a second kiss that’s much longer than the first. Sam’s lips are lingering and delicate, then hard and demanding on his own. That’s his brother though, he’s always been full of contradictions. His answer is kissing Sam back, answering his demands with his own, pressing him back into the kitchen counter, grinding them together where it counts. Sam is groaning and panting into his mouth, and it’s the hottest goddamn thing he’s ever heard.

Sam manhandles him around and props him up on the kitchen counter, going to the floor in a graceful kneel in-between Dean’s knees. His hands move restless and jumpy on Dean’s thighs, and Dean can feel the heat from Sam’s fingertips bleeding through the denim of his jeans. He wishes that he was wearing his pajama pants so he could feel Sam more clearly. Because what if this is the only time this happens? Sam’s undoing his fly and taking him out, and then his lips and tongue, and his mouth, and oh god…his brother—his Sam is blowing him like a goddamn expert. It’s overwhelming how good it is, how good he is for him.

“So good for me, Sammy, so damn good. Oh god, what am I gonna do with you?” Dean groans as he comes right down Sam’s throat without any sort of warning.

Sam swallows it all like a champ, licks him clean and then grins up at him, “You’re going to use me like this every day if you want to, it’s up to you, Dean.” He kisses his way over to Dean’s left hipbone and proceeds to nip and suck a mark into Dean’s skin. Dean moans because it feels fucking amazing and it feels like it’s a promise Sam’s leaving on his skin, his offer of everything made even more real.

Sam stands up and kisses Dean, his arms wrapped around him, so strong and inescapable. Dean breaks the kiss to mouth his way to the warm skin of Sam’s neck, and he sucks and bites at the graceful curve near his clavicle. He wants to mark Sam like he was just marked. The blood rushes to the surface, and Dean licks and sucks until Sam pushes him away. Sam dives in to take over his mouth again, Dean’s lips curl at the bitter taste of himself, but then he licks further into Sam’s mouth to get more of it and all he can process is a strange smokiness. There’s an old smokiness there, not ashtray stale exactly, but old maybe even ancient, and what the hell has Sam been smoking to taste like this?

Then he doesn’t care because Sam isn’t holding him, he’s leaving the room, and he’s gone and—What. The. Hell.

He gets down from his perch on the counter and has his pants back up and belt buckled when he hears Sam scream. Dean runs flat out towards Sam’s room, but he’s not there, he hears another scream that’s cutoff abruptly, he can tell it came from the library and he dashes up the stairs.

“Sammy, what’s wrong?” Dean asks as he runs into the room.

Sam is standing in front of one of the tables, his hands over his mouth and a look of horror on his face. He turns his bugged-out, terrified eyes to Dean and shakes his head.

“I…I thought I…that you were—fuck what the hell was that!” Sam yells as he paces around the library table looking under it from all sides.

Dean looks too, but all he sees is some food crumbs that should have been swept up when he did chores the other day. “I don’t see anything.”

“Yeah, me neither. So either I’m going crazy or I don’t even know what else it could be,” Sam sinks down into his chair and puts his head in his hands.

Dean walks over and sets a hand on his brother’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. He notices that Sam’s wearing a different shirt, actually two different shirts than the ones he had been wearing in the kitchen less than a minute ago. There wasn’t time for him to change—and his hair is now wet. “What did you see?”

“It was you, Dean, I thought it was you.”

“I wasn’t in here though, you know I was in the kitchen,”

“All I know is that I sat down at this table and I felt something flop over onto my foot, then it grabbed my ankle. It was all wet with blood, god the smell of it, that was when I screamed.”

“And then what?” Dean asks, still holding on to Sam’s shoulder. His brother is vibrating under his hand like he’s about to fly into a zillion pieces.

“I jumped up, and it was you, Dean. You were down there under the table, crumpled up on the floor. You were completely covered in blood, I don’t know how you were still alive. I could see that there were slashes all over your body.”

“Was I naked?” Dean asks, wiggling his eyebrows to try and get a laugh out of Sam.

“This isn’t funny, and yes you were. But the blood, the knife wounds, it was—“ Sam trails off to nothing.

“Well, it wasn’t me, obviously, because here I am, fully clothed, no knife wounds anywhere,” Dean says, gesturing at himself with the hand that isn’t holding onto Sam’s shoulder. He pulls up his shirt to show Sam when the terrified look on his face doesn’t go away.

“What if it’s my visions coming back somehow?” Sam asks, somehow sounding like a scared five year old.

Dean takes a deep breath to calm the approaching dread he feels at the very mention of Sam’s visions. “After all this time, I really doubt it, and you mentioned smelling something. You didn’t have smell-o-vision back then, right? It was probably just a dream,” Dean says, remembering back all those years ago when Sam when get the horrible headaches after the visions assaulted him.

Sam sniffs loudly almost like he’s proving it to himself. “Wow, what smells so damn good?” Sam asks.

“It’s dinner, remember I told you it’d be ready in an hour? Well, less than that now,” Dean says, wondering if the shock of whatever dream his brother just experienced made him forget their very recent conversation about dinner. Well, a whole lot happened right after that. He blushes just thinking about it.

“Wait, why are you blushing?” Sam asks, looking up at him with a head-tilt and a squint of suspicious little-brother eyes. “Was this a trick you played on me somehow?”

“What? No, not a trick, how could I have even done anything? Dude, you know I was just in the kitchen.”

“No, Dean, I didn’t know. I thought you were still in your room, like you have been for a few days.”

Dean has definitely stopped blushing, this is unreal, it’s like nothing happened between them just a few minutes ago. No—it’s more like Sam’s trying to ignore what they did, hell he probably regrets it. “So we’re playing it that way, huh?” Instead of screaming like he wants to, Dean stalks off to his room and slams the door.

Fuck Sam and fuck the whole thing, he knew it couldn’t be that easy. Hell, who knew if it even had happened at all. The way his head has been since Michael got yanked out, maybe he just re-ran one of his favorite go-to daydreams. Unlocked one of those rooms in his head. He’s always had a thing for imagining Sam offering himself up unconditionally like that. And every guy daydreams about random awesome blowjobs, right?

He throws himself down on the bed and puts his headphones on, cranks up some music and shuts his eyes. He doesn’t want to think about this, or feel anything about it, but then the spot where Sam had bit him, right over his left hipbone throbs in time with his heartbeat. He stands up and stalks over to the mirror, pushes down his jeans and there it is. Evidence that it was all real, not some long-cherished daydream. Somehow that’s a million times worse. “Fuck!”

Dean knows that he must have fallen asleep, because this has to be one of the worst dreams he’s ever had in his life. It has to be a dream, right? But it’s so real, he can taste it on his tongue, the heavy copper of the blood, he can smell it, the stench of the guts, and even worse it’s happening right here on his bed.

No…it’s not just “happening”—he’s the one doing it.

He’s up to his elbows in someone—someone’s body. He’s pushing past various internal organs, slipping his hands past what has to be a liver. It’s so big and spongy, taking up so much space inside this person who was so recently alive. It’s all still so warm, and the copper smell is overwhelming, he can taste it on the back of his tongue and he hasn’t even had any of the blood or pieces in his mouth…yet.

But wait…why, why in the hell would he do this, the remaining rational part of his brain screams internally. The answer that comes in a terrifying voice that he recognizes as his own is worse than any monster he could imagine: I need it, I need to hold it in my hand.

Dean’s hands move of their own accord, pressing through the body cavity, searching for it, for what he needs most. What, what do you need, he asks himself in a desperate rush. What do I need so badly that I’d do this?

The answer comes right away, as soon as his hand holds the heart. I need to see if it’s as black as my own. He tugs at it, but it’s stubbornly attached.

“Don’t you want to know, Dean-o?” an almost familiar voice asks him.

He starts to shake with the fear that it’s not a dream, that this is real, because it’s a possibility, Michael just recently had him doing all kinds of things like this in the real world when he was riding him. Who knows what tricks or booby-traps Michael might have left behind. Dean wars with himself for a long few minutes just to look up and confirm who this body used to be. He already knows, of course he does, but he does.  
not.  
want.  
to.

He forces himself to scan up the chest where the body is still whole, past the familiar tattoo that he shares on his own chest, past those impossibly broad shoulders, he can see the clear dark outline of where he’d sucked a hickey into this very same neck earlier today. He shakes his head, tears pouring freely down his cheeks, he’s sobbing, he doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to know what he’s done. He has to though, for Sam, he has to do it, he has to at least look. He slides his eyes in one heroic pass over the face that he knows better than his own. Empty of life, Sam never looks right when he’s dead.

He tries to stop rummaging in Sam’s guts, because Sam wouldn’t want him to do this. Wouldn’t want him to be invasive and snoopy like he can’t help being all the time, especially inside his very own body. Sam will hate it that he did this, all because he needed to know if their hearts were in the same state. Why, why do I need to know this? Dean asks himself, like he needs to distract someone else to be able to get his own hands out of his own brother.

The answer comes in a terribly loud and emphatic voice that reminds him now of his father…shit. “So you don’t have to be guilty about screwing him, Dean-o.”

Asking the question makes it possible to try to get his hands out of Sam. The sound when he slips one of his hands out of Sam’s belly is a slow, slick, sucking sound. Just hearing it sets him off screaming. He keeps screaming because he can’t get his other hand out, because it’s holding something hard and almost ashy in his hand. It’s got to be Sam’s heart…it is Sam’s heart, just as black and dead as his own. He jerks back at the feel of the thing in his hand, but his wrists are ringed with intestines slipping and sliding out of Sam. The sound they make when they hit the floor remind him of Glythur’s tentacles flailing against the altar as they’d searched for a hold on him. Splatting with a sick and sticky sound, but then still moving, still slippery. He’d beaten Glythur and his fucking tentacles, and Sam had been there afterwards, holding him like this.

Like he is now.

Because Sam is here now and alive, at his side, all flailing limbs while he still holds Dean somehow and the hovering instantly starts. “Dean? You okay?”

Because of course Dean’s hands aren’t covered in his brother’s blood, his arms aren’t ringed with Sam’s intestines slipping and sliding. He can’t possibly explain it. There’s no dead brother in his bed, just a live and very worried one.

He wrings his hands together just to make sure there’s no slick blood still there. “Yeah, just a really bad dream,” Dean mumbles, hoping against hope that it’s enough to satisfy Sam for the moment. He can’t even look at him, doesn’t want to see the worry and fear, doesn’t want to remember how beautiful his face was—even in death (especially in death…oh don’t go there, Dean, nononono.)

“You’re shaking,” Sam says, and pulls one of Dean’s quilts around both of their shoulders, leaves his arm around him, pulls Dean in tight, close to his side, where he has no business being. It’s not right taking this from Sam, not after that dream, after what he’s done in real life to Sam that’s almost as bad.

What does it say about Dean that this is the best thing he’s felt all day, he wonders. Better than the fucking blow job, better than all the kissing, (the blood, that beautiful black heart in his hand). He fits right there under Sam’s arm perfectly, no slouching required. He leans his head over until his ear rests on Sam’s chest.

“So what was it? I mean…uh, you were really screaming, dude. Scared the shit out of me,” Sam says. Admitting that he was scared is a low blow, secret little-brother weapon of last resort.

“Sorry, yeah, it was a bad one. Maybe I just need some more rest,” Dean says.

“Is it Michael related?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs his arm off and yanks the quilt over his head, flops on his back and doesn’t answer. He can’t answer, it’s all mixed-up in his mind and heart and soul and he needs to sort it out on his own.

“I really wish you’d just tell me,” Sam says. “Especially after what happened earlier.” Sam goes away angry, Dean thinks he’s still ignoring what happened in the kitchen and is referring to Sam’s screaming fit in the library. But that doesn’t make sense, because even though Sam had described what he’d seen, he sure as hell hadn’t told him what had made him so scared. Hell, he’d gotten distracted by the smell of dinner.

Dinner…shit, he’d left it in the oven all this time

Sam hears the same scuttling noises in the hallway on his way back to his room. But he’s too angry to stop and investigate. He’s got to focus on figuring this out, back in his room with the door closed, he keeps researching the vision he’d had in the library. What did it mean seeing Dean almost dead like that? Was he somehow cursed, or was it really possible that his powers were making a return? And now a new question occurs to him: does it have anything to do with what just happened with Dean screaming just now? Maybe if his powers were back, he’d projected something, made his brother see something just as awful as he’d seen? More likely that it’s probably just some leftover archangel bullshit. But Dean isn’t going to talk about that stuff any time soon now is he?

Dean comes in without knocking, interrupting Sam’s internal stream of questions. He’s changed his clothes and doesn’t look so freaked. But Dean stays silent, his eyes are dark with some emotion that Sam doesn’t recognize. He joins Sam on the bed without hesitation this time.

The dark emotion in Dean’s eyes is now more obvious, he needs it and wants it, but can’t ask. Sam can at least give him this, without making it difficult. He pulls Dean down to the bed, tangling their legs together, and pinning his arms above his head with one hand capturing Dean’s wrists. Sam grinds against Dean, right where it counts, where he can feel it, how much Dean wants him, how hard he is for him already. Sam crushes his mouth to Dean’s, sealing them together, tongue fucking him desperately as Dean responds with the same level of desperation. The smoky taste comes on more strongly, the deeper Sam licks into Dean’s mouth, but it doesn’t stop him from taking what he needs.

Sam is so besotted with this new version of Dean that is taking him apart and putting him back together with his teeth and tongue and lips. He doesn’t understand where Dean has the time or energy when he’s battling to put himself back together after Michael’s possession. Much less to cook that amazing lasagna dinner that Sam had taken out of the oven before it could burn.

But before he can think much more deeply than that, Dean’s naked and writhing under him and all thoughts of thinking deeply or about lasagna go right out the nonexistent window in his room. It’s just him and his brother and all the passion and love he’d hoped for but never expected. They don’t talk about it while it’s happening, or afterwards, not once. Sam finds that he can’t care too much that outside of the time he’s spent in Sam’s room, Dean acts just like they always have. It’s the most exhilarating and confusing day Sam has ever had in his whole life.

Dean is heading to the kitchen to hopefully salvage dinner, even overcooked lasagna is usually still good in the middle. And he’d had it in the oven with tinfoil on top, so maybe it won’t be too burned. He knows Sam likes the burned edges of lasagna the best anyway. As he turns the corner in the hallway he hears the scuttling down at the dark end, by the door where he’d almost killed his brother with a hammer. He hates remembering that, but it’s part of their history with this place.

Thoughts of all the good things and bad that have happened to them in the bunker run through his mind, pushing out the impulse to go check on what creepy crawly critter is making a home for itself in their home. “Rat traps, gotta get some rat traps next time we’re out,” he mutters to himself.

Dean doesn’t find the lasagna burning in the oven, instead he pulls the perfect lasagna out of the refrigerator, where Sam had put it, only after he’d taken a big corner piece for himself, Dean notices with satisfaction. He’s a little disappointed though, he’d wanted them to eat it together, hell he’d even made Sam a damn green salad with his favorite veggies. Dean leans up against the counter and picks at the lasagna he’s heated up for himself. He touches the edge of the counter and realizes what happened in this exact spot just a few hours ago.

Dean is overwhelmed with the mere thought of what Sam had offered right here in their kitchen, to have him, like that—forever, no strings, no discussions, just everything he’d ever wanted basically for free. It still doesn’t seem possible. Before he can finish his lasagna, Sam’s taking the plate out of his hands and setting the fork down. His brother looms over him, trapping him in place against the counter. Dean’s losing his balance so he sets his hands on Sam’s hips. They fit perfectly, just like the rest of their bodies do. Sam is pressing them together, his hips moving in an insistent rhythm. Dean knows he should stop this, make Sam talk, extract some promises at least, but all he wants is to give himself over, and take and give and have.

“Dean, want it again, need it, please,” Sam says in this delicious begging tone.

Dean gets both of them out and in his hand, sliding together sloppy with their excitement. Sam’s mouth is a cavern devouring him from above, he’s leaning back like some damsel in distress on a romance novel cover and it’s ridiculous how he’s grabbing onto Sam’s shoulders, holding on for dear life. Then one of Sam’s giant hands wraps around his own and it’s suddenly perfect and hot and both of them are done for. Sam grins down at him, licks his own palm clean, slow and careful so Dean can see his tongue in action.

“Thanks for dinner,” Sam says, grinning again while zipping himself back together. He’s out the kitchen door before Dean can even say anything. What is this fuck-around-and-run business anyway? He’d always figured that Sam would be the lounge around cuddling in bed and talk about your feelings type of guy. Not that he’d ever fantasized about that, oh no, of course not. He mentally kicks himself in the head and cleans himself up.

“Thanks for fucking dinner, huh? That’s the best you can do, really?” Dean asks the sink of dirty dishes that they hadn’t finished the first time. The rhythm of scrubbing and rinsing puts him into a trance.

He comes back to himself, his hands are wet and slick with soap. No…not soap, it’s blood again, and he’s not holding a scrubby sponge or a dirty plate, it’s the biggest sharpest chef knife he owns. He’s gripping it and bringing it down, again and again. Someone is begging him to stop, pleading with their last breath, Jack finally dies under his hands. Dean drops into a heap on top of the blood-soaked bodies of Cas and Mom, still stabbing at them randomly even though they’re already dead.

The knife is so sharp, so slick with blood. So much blood, all on him, on his hands, in his mouth, why is it in his damn mouth? He spits to get the taste of it out.

Why didn’t anyone stop him? Didn’t they know he was capable of this? He always has been, especially after the Mark. They should have been more careful, he was like an armed nuclear bomb, hair trigger ready to blow.

It must have been a remnant of Michael left inside him that made him do this, it can’t be just him. Why can’t he stop stabbing even though they’re all dead? They’re dead and why is there still so much blood—so much blood because they’re already dead. It should stop, it really should stop. He can hear Sam’s footsteps pounding down the hallway, coming through the kitchen door and he can’t stop bringing the chef’s knife down and down again. Sam will make him stop. Please, you have to make me stop.

Sam’s holding his hand. Dean can see that his own hand is clenched tight in a fist like he’s holding a knife he can no longer see. Sam’s pulling his fingers apart from Dean’s clenched fist, stroking the back of his hand gently, his eyes searching the room for an attacker. “Another bad one, huh?” Sam asks, voice quiet and soothing.

Dean closes his eyes and nods. He leans into Sam and rests his head on his brother’s broad chest. The fast beating heart under his ear slows as Sam calms down along with him.

“You okay, Dean?” Sam asks, and the gorgeous rumble of his voice shakes the last tears from Dean’s eyes.

He nods slow and deliberate, enjoying the pull of Sam’s shirts against his cheek. It’s ridiculous how much he loves this, Sam almost holding him in an embrace. It’s such a comfort, he couldn’t possibly explain how much he craves this. As if he’s reading Dean’s mind, Sam’s arms come around him and hold him, not in a squishy glad-you’re-not-dead hug, but just a protective embrace.

“You’ll be okay, Dean,” Sam says, and rubs one of his hands in a wide circle over Dean’s back. He relishes being surrounded by Sam on all sides, and sighs as he lets himself melt into his brother’s hold.

“Glad you liked dinner, Sammy,” Dean says in a mumble as Sam walks him back to his bed.

Sam thinks he’s dreaming at first, but he doesn’t usually smell things in his dreams. What could make a smell so strong that he woke up? He sits up and leans over, he can smell that something strange is coming from under his bed. It’s intense, coming at him in waves, it smells like blood, just like old blood. He leans down just enough to see under the bed. There’s a bloody hand, he pulls on it, and feels its warmth, can feel a faint pulse in the wrist. Whoever this is must still be alive. He pulls and tugs and he can see the face—it’s his father. An accusing voice in his head intones, You’ve forgotten the face of your father.

“Dad! Oh shit, Dad!” Sam yells, leaping out of the bed, not caring that he’s still completely naked from last night with Dean. He yanks his father out from under the bed the rest of the way. There’s a knife stuck in his dad’s stomach, and it’s his own knife, the one he never uses, the curved one he’s had ever since he left for college. It’s stuck there in his dad’s barely breathing body, most of the curve buried deep in his belly.

His hand is on the knife’s handle, trying to pull it out when Dean comes in yelling for him. Wait, why wasn’t he already in here? Dean was sleeping wrapped up around me less than an hour ago, flashes through his mind, but it can’t possibly win over the panic, the all-consuming fear of his father dying right here on his bedroom floor with him unable to do a damn thing to stop it. It’s like the fucking hospital all over again. Sam can practically smell the coffee he’d dropped that day rushing to his father’s bedside, only to be too late again.

“Sam? Are you okay? Why were you yelling?” Dean asks, sounding near panic. And why isn’t he panicked, it’s his father too, can’t he see him dying down here?

The knife is gone, it’s not in his hand anymore, and there’s no nearly dead father on the floor. There’s no blood on the floor or his hands, there’s nothing he can see but the corner of his memory box sticking out from underneath his bed. He wipes his non-bloodied hands over his face, tries to stuff back in the terror and the tears that had come in that instant of relief. He feels Dean’s hand clamp down on one shoulder and he can’t…all the uncertainty and strangeness between them. He can’t deal with it and seeing this shit too. He must have been dreaming—right?

“It was just a bad dream. I…uh, I need to be alone right now, Dean,” Sam says, ducking his shoulder from underneath the weight of Dean’s hand. He wishes more than anything he’d put his pajamas back on last night. Especially since Dean is completely dressed, even has his boots on. Had he been leaving?

“I’m here if you need me, you know that, right, Sam?” Dean asks, hand on the doorknob to leave.

“Yeah, thanks, I probably just need some rest. See you in the morning,” Sam says with a little wave of a hand that he knows looks sad, but he still hopes it’s enough to get Dean out of the door.

Sam waits a few beats after Dean’s left and closed the door behind him. He pulls his sweats and flannels on and crouches at the side of his bed. The corner of his memory box is still showing, so something must have moved it. He can smell the strange old blood scent from before, but it’s not quite as strong as in his dream. He reaches down to pull out his memory box the rest of the way and opens the lid. There’s a nasty blackened lump on top of everything, it’s a burned up heart. And he’s seen this before and he’s trying to remember and then—wham!  
Something hits him upside his head and he’s out cold.

He wakes up who knows how much later, tied to his own metal desk chair, with a gag in his mouth. He knows that this chair is unbreakable, it’s from the 1940s or 1950s, probably army surplus or something that the Men of Letters had bought back then. He tries, but he can’t get himself untied. Yelling through the gag as loudly as possible doesn’t work either. He strains his ears to hear if there’s any sign of his attacker, any movements out in the hall. He hopes that Dean comes back in to check on him. Maybe he will, because the door is wide open. Sam starts hopping the chair in small, pathetic baby steps towards the doorway and out into the hall. He stops for a moment to catch his breath and hears what sounds like talking down in the garage. He keeps jumping the chair in ridiculous little hops down the long hallway, wishing they lived in a smaller place. Hoping that the attacker won’t hear him coming.

There’s been some stuff missing in the garage lately, tools, the rope that usually lives in the Impala’s trunk, that kind of thing. To avoid dealing with the is-Michael-still-lurking-issue, or the WTF-Sam-issue, Dean decides to investigate something mundane and petty instead. His first guess is that the other hunters were helping themselves to his stash of supplies without asking. Or maybe their “chief” Mr. New-Bobby had approved their sticky fingers. All he knows is, his shit is missing. He sits at the workbench in the garage and checks the last week or so of the video files from the video monitoring system that he’d installed a few years ago for the garage entrance.

He initially just wants to see who’s been coming and going, maybe find out if there are any patterns. At first, Dean sees the usual folks, himself, Sam, Cas and Jack, all expected and boring. Then there’s an unfortunately long interlude of mom and New-Bobby that he fast forwards through without looking too closely at the details. But then finally, there’s someone he doesn’t recognize. She’s beautiful, on the small side, with dark hair. She’s moving so quickly he can’t see her face clearly, but then she pauses and the video shows a very clear retinal flare. She slips in through the door to the bunker. He looks at the date and time, four days ago. Back when he’d first heard the noises in the hallway, and Sam had started…everything between them.

He fast forwards through the last few days and there’s nothing, until about an hour ago when Sam comes in. He sees Sam and his big hulking shoulders rolling one of the vintage motorcycles out of the garage door without starting it which is weird enough, and also—Sam doesn’t know how to ride a motorcycle. Dean pauses the playback when Sam comes back into the garage without the motorcycle. His face comes into clear focus, and Dean’s not sure what he’s seeing. Is it a video artifact, or is he just misreading it, he’s not sure. He rewinds and plays it forward again, and there—Sam’s eyes flash in that distinctive otherworldly, monster-y way that all of them seem to have on video. It’s a shock seeing the flare coming from Sam’s eyes though, it reminds Dean of seeing the blue angel flash when Gadreel would take over. Never again, he’d promised himself.

The likely meaning of it all crashes into him, crushing him under its weight. He needs to do something about this—now. Either Sam is possessed by something or there's a creature at loose in the bunker that is able to do a bang-up job of impersonating him. The woman from four days ago, the one with the retinal flare, could she have been some sort of shape-shifter?

Dean’s stomach lurches as he considers a little further. The Sam that he’d kissed and everything else in the kitchen yesterday, that probably hadn’t been his Sam. He should have known, it wouldn’t ever be that easy or simple for Sam to cross that line. And Sam wouldn’t have tasted like the smoky remnants of an incense burner. Who or what would taste like that, though?

“Me…Dean, it would taste like me,” Sam says from right behind him. And he knows he didn’t say a damn thing out loud, knows in an instant that this is a monster that can read his mind, and more importantly is one who is not really his Sam. He whirls around throwing a punch low and hard, all his force and power and rage behind his fist. Not-Sam flies back into the storage cabinet, knocking his head into the cement brick wall with an audible crack. He crashes to the floor and goes limp like he’s been knocked out.

Dean throws himself forward, pinning him to the rough floor. Not-Sam thrashes underneath him, struggling to push Dean off.

“You’re not him, so who the fuck are you?” Dean yells into his not-brother’s face. “Where the hell is my brother?”

Dean realizes that if this is Sam’s body, then he just took a really hard hit to the head, because his brother’s eyes can’t seem to focus. He worries for a split second that he’s hurt his brother. The dude is the last person in the world who deserves yet another head injury. But this isn’t his brother, right?

In the next split second, Sam’s face crumples up into the biggest grin, and he bursts out laughing, sarcastic and harsh. “Took you long enough, asshole,” Sam spits up into Dean’s face.

Dean’s not falling for it though, little brother tricks pulled on him by something that’s not really his little brother are still just a distraction ploy. He tightens his hold on Sam’s wrists. “Tell me now, or I’ll gut you here and now like you deserve.”

“Tch, tch, tch, Dean-o, that’s no way to treat a lady,” Sam says, his face changing and melting into someone else’s.

Dean’s grip on her wrists falters as they transform into something much smaller, suddenly she looks very familiar, she’s the woman on the video system from a few days ago. But it’s more than that, he knows he should recognize who she is, but all he can do is fight to hold her down. She’s so damn strong, even weakened with the shot she took to the head, he’s not going to be able to hold her much longer. He struggles and yells, hoping against hope that his brother is somewhere close enough that he can hear him, “Sam! I need you! In the garage, now!”

The fight goes on, the woman or whatever she is really knows how to hold her own, even with the head injury. When she manages to get a hand free, she keeps reaching for his chest like she wants to rip his heart out or something. He finally gets her flipped over in a wrestling hold, her face smashed against the cement floor, his knee on her lower back. That’s when he remembers a similar fight, one that he’d definitely been losing, until Sam had saved him at the last moment. “You’re that qareen thing, I thought we already killed you.”

She struggles beneath him and almost throws him off completely. “That was my sister you fucking asshole. I’m here to return the fucking favor.”

Dean slams her head into the cement floor as hard as he can manage. Her struggling weakens quite a bit. “You’ve been messing with us, huh? For how long?” Dean asks, stomach dropping with the realization that all of it, everything he thought he’d gotten in the last few days was a damn lie.

“You two…ah it’s been so damn fun. Your angst is off-the-charts delicious, I have to tell you. Wish I was a siren, I’d be feeding on you forever.”

“Sam! It’s a qareen, you gotta find the heart thingy!” Dean yells. He’s heartened to hear some crashing down the hall. That means Sam is moving at least, she didn’t have him immobilized or worse. The sounds of something crashing into the walls gets louder and closer.

“Dean!” Sam yells. He lands in the garage entrance, tied to a chair that he’s apparently been jumping down the hall, bashing into the walls from the looks of him. He’s red and flustered, hair everywhere with a furious look on his face. “I know right where it is, I just can’t get myself untied.”

Dean watches with amusement as Sam jumps the chair closer and closer, stopping just next to them. He slams the qareen’s head into the floor again when she laughs. “Heya, Sammy,” Dean says with relief, he’s so damn glad to see him. “Can you hold her with your feet or something so I can untie you?” Sam’s giant feet land on her back and press down—hard.

The qareen lets out a grunt of pain and weakly squirms under all the weight that Sam’s pressing into her. “Get off me you fucking oaf!”

“Not today,” Sam says between gritted teeth, struggling to keep enough force on her to hold her down. Dean gets him untied and then they’re both holding her immobile beneath them. Dean tries not to feel how his fingers are still tingling from touching Sam’s skin. This isn’t a thing he should ever think about again, especially not with the real Sam right there and a monster beneath them they need to deal with.

“You said you know where the heart thing is stashed?” Dean asks, panting hard at the exertion of the fight and the sheer relief of seeing his brother alive.

Sam stretches out to grab a giant wrench from the work bench and hits the qareen upside the head. In an instant she goes limp under the two of them. “Yeah, it’s in my room. You hold her, just in case she comes around.”

“Yeah, I’ve got her, go,” Dean says, grabbing a length of rope from one of the bins under the work bench. He quickly secures her legs to her arms behind her in a hopefully inescapable series of wraps and knots. “Wait, why is it in your room?” Dean asks Sam’s retreating back. He doesn’t get an answer, maybe he won’t get any answers out of this whole thing. It’s all so messed up. He punches the qareen in her slackened face just because, she may have finally done what so many of their other supernatural foes have attempted over the years—broken the Winchesters completely.

Dean thinks about it while he has the chance and Sam isn’t here distracting him. Are they really truly broken this time, is this a thing they can come back from? Maybe she didn’t do the same thing to both of them? That’s the only chance he can see, because he doesn’t know if he can live with Sam knowing the truth after all these years. Sam hadn’t seemed particularly freaked or upset just now, but then they were in the middle of taking down the qareen. He’s going to go with that for the moment, just pretend nothing has changed, nothing major has happened. Hopefully he can get through this to the other side with his brother not hating him forever or leaving or worse. (What could be worse than that?)

Sam races down the hall to his bedroom and drops to his knees next to his bed. He grabs his memory box, in a second he’s got it open and his sharpest silver knife is embedded in the black and shriveled thing that used to be the qareen’s heart. It’s a lot juicier than he’d hoped, it leaks all over the brochure from that retirement home. He picks the brochure up and takes it out, closes the memory box and shoves it back under his bed. Holding the brochure with the stabbed heart he walks back down the hall towards his brother. The one who he probably will never be able to look in the eye again. He pauses in the garage doorway, takes a deep breath and tries to hide everything he’s feeling. It’s pretty easy, he’s been doing it for twenty years now.

“She dead?” Sam asks, holding the brochure out so Dean can see the stabbed heart. It looks like his own feels, black and crumbled, run through so thoroughly, the pain that’s coursing through him is almost too much to bear.

“Dead and dusted, yeah. Guess you’re two for two on killing qareens now,” Dean says, standing up from the mess on the garage floor that used to be the qareen. He looks down at the blackened thing in the brochure and smiles. “She put it in your memory box, huh?”

“How did you even kn—?” Sam asks, cutting himself off. Because of course they have no visible secrets, just like when they lived out of the car all those years. Only the invisible ones that they keep inside where they’re supposed to be safe.

“I think it’s cute you keeping that. And that retirement place was really nice. I wouldn’t mind ending up there,” Dean says.

“Really?” Sam asks, unbelieving that Dean’s voicing something like this, like it’s no big deal.

“It’d be good for us to have something to look forward to like that, don’t you think?” Dean asks.

Sam considers what exactly his brother means by this question. It could run the gamut from just not wanting to die alone, or to wanting to live together for the rest of their lives. As in: Together together. “It is, yeah, that’s why I kept it in my secret memory box that isn’t much of a secret apparently.”

“Sorry, I was vacuuming in there and it got knocked over and I couldn’t help myself. I apologize for snooping,” Dean says, sounding like he means it, but still in that big brother teasing way that makes Sam bristle a little at the invasiveness.

“You are a terrible snoop, always have been,” Sam says. “But I can’t complain too much about it, at least you vacuum.”

“Big brother code, man. Them’s the rules,” Dean says with a grin.

Sam feels it then, the two pathways they have from this moment. They can ignore what the qareen put them through and just continue on as they have always been. But…but what about if they choose the other path? The one where they have each other and make each other happy for the rest of their lives. Sam wants that with all his heart and soul, it’s a fierce and powerful need that makes him take down his walls and let Dean see it all plainly on his face. He watches his brother as he sees and understands, he sees the fear flicker over and turn into resolve. That’s his Dean, gotta make the big sacrifice, always has to be the bravest, most self-sacrificing shit around.

“I think of you as more than just my big brother though,” Sam says, still leaving Dean this one last offramp. He watches Dean’s face closely, sees when he makes the decision. Sam squares his shoulders and takes a deep breath, here comes the rejection he knows he deserves.

“I know, Sammy,” Dean says soft and careful.

Sam reaches out and cups the side of Dean’s face, remembers what it was like this past week, how he’d shared all of that with a creature and not this man that he’s loved in all ways for his whole life. How he’d been so desperate for it that he’d missed all the signs that it hadn’t really been his Dean. “I’m just sorry that it wasn’t really you.”

“Me too, I would have like to have been there, and vice versa, I guess,” Dean says, smiling so wide and genuine, Sam can’t help himself, he presses his fingertips in a bit harder into the skin of Dean’s cheek, the warm tingle of their connection still so strong. He feels his blackened heart absorbing this small moment of tenderness, it’ll be enough to get by on, it’ll have to be. He drops his hand and starts to walk away.

“We should probably talk about all this,” Dean says, just as Sam is passing out of the garage. He stops and thinks for a moment about how hard it must have been for his brother to say those words. He turns around and looks at Dean, the mess of the dead qareen at his feet, the vast space of the garage behind him. He looks so small and fierce and he’s so dear, he means everything to Sam, he gasps as his heart seems to do a turn in his chest. He presses his hand over it, like he’s holding it inside. And maybe he is.

“Yeah, if you want to, sure. Meet me in the kitchen, I need to go get changed,” Sam says, and then he’s down the hall and back in his room, safe for the moment. He strips his clothes off and washes his face in the sink. All of a sudden he’s so damn tired he can barely stand. The worry and emotions of it all is too much. He curls up in bed and hopes Dean will be able to wait to talk.

Sam wakes up, surprised that he had been able to fall asleep. His front side is warm, because there’s someone next to him in the bed. He opens his eyes and sees that it’s Dean, and for a long moment he just stares, even though Dean obviously sees he’s awake. He catalogs through his feelings quickly and can’t find anything that quite matches, dread, pleased surprise, inevitability—all of that and more.

“Thought we were meeting in the kitchen,” Sam says, glad that he’s all the way under the covers since he’s not wearing a thing. Hopefully Dean hasn’t noticed, he doesn’t want this to get more awkward than it’s already going to be.

“I couldn’t wait anymore, so I thought I’d come in here and wait,” Dean admits.

That seems like they’re off to a good start, that Dean wants to be in the same room with him, even take the chance to lay down on his bed and wait for him to wake up.

“How long was I out?” Sam asks.

“Long enough,” Dean says.

“Long enough for what?” Sam asks.

“How was her heart in your memory box, Sam? I thought that was just for whoever was controlling the qareen,” Dean says, instead of answering his question. Sam guesses it was just long enough for Dean to start obsessing over the who did what to whom issues.

“She said she was the qareen’s sister, the one we killed before, right?”

“Yeah, something like that, she said she was coming here to mess with us and avenge her sister,” Dean says, after a few beats where Sam can’t think of a thing to say, because he knows what Dean is obsessing over, Dean carries on, “She sure as hell messed with us, not so much on the avenging.”

“I wasn’t controlling her if that’s what you’re thinking,” Sam says.

“No—what, why would I think that?” Dean sputters, obviously offended at the idea.

“Well, we’re both wondering why the hell she would put her own heart in my memory box?” Sam asks.

“Maybe she wanted me to find it? Mess us up even more or something?” Dean asks.

“She really did screw with us, didn’t she?” Sam asks, regretting using the word screw almost immediately.

“It doesn’t have to screw…uh, mess us up, unless—you think it has to,” Dean says, biting his lip like he’s trying not to say something more.

That right there is enough to blow Sam’s mind completely apart, maybe for good. How can he possibly trust this isn’t some leftover effect from the qareen? “I don’t—I mean, you’re right it doesn’t have to mess us up. We can just forget it happened, right?”

“If that’s what you want, sure, we can give it a try. We’ll just forget the last few days ever happened,” Dean says, starting to sit up, he obviously wants to get out as fast as possible.

Sam sits up too, wanting to stop Dean before he leaves, forgetting that he’s naked, the covers drop down to his waist. Dean’s eyes follow them, and track slowly back up his bare torso to his very red face. He’s always hated that he easily blushes like this, Dean inevitably notices and never misses a chance to tease him about it.

Not this time, though.

“Sammy—I,” Dean says, halting over every single syllable. It’s in that husky whisper that had gotten to Sam all those days ago, and this is how it really feels to hear the real voice from the real man.

“Me too, Dean,” Sam manages to say, just before his lips are otherwise occupied.

They kiss, tentative and careful, Dean being so achingly gentle that Sam feels his heart skip several beats with the joy of being treasured like this. Dean lays them down again, holding Sam close and kissing him more definitely now. Like he means it, like he’s letting himself mean it.

Finally they break for air, both gasping with the newness of it.

“Fuck, you taste so much better,” Dean says.

“Yeah, never start smoking or whatever she was doing,” Sam says, him overcome with a big yawn. Suddenly he feels like he hasn’t really slept in days. He pulls the covers out from under Dean and holds him close. “It okay if I fall asleep on you?” Sam asks in an already sleepy mumble.

Sam barely stops himself from purring with the pleasure of feeling Dean’s hand stroking his bare back in a lazy circle. “Yeah, Sammy,” he says in that husky whisper that Sam’s sure he’s never going to hear enough of no matter how long they’ve got left to live together. Together together that is.


End file.
